The Project (Part 4)

Over the past two weeks, the 1985 MIJ Squier Contemporary Strat body has seen it's last coat of lacquer. In total, 4 coats of lacquer sanding sealer, then 3 coats of color, and lastly 15 coats of gloss lacquer. The last coat put on May 7th - so now it must cure and harden for the next two weeks. Apparently lacquer VOC's need to dissipate before any final sanding can occur. So by May 21st, I can start wet sanding starting with 800 grit, moving to 1000, 1200, 1600, and finally 2000. This is because spray lacquer has a texture to it, similar to the rind of an orange, and to get that smooth and glass like finish, wet sanding and then compounding must happen, unless you like the orange rind finish - in which case, DONE! I like the glassy finish myself so I'll have some sanding, sanding, sanding to do. I've decided to use mineral spirits for the wet sanding instead of water - but either works fine.

So while the body cures and hardens, the neck and electronics need to be done. As mentioned before, I decided to go with non-Fender pickups, though Fender does have some nice pickups for strats. This is because I wanted a bit of a modern sound for this older guitar - something a bit more hip.

The neck and middle pickup are single coil Bareknuckle Mothers Milk pickups, which still have that strat sound but a modern version. I purchased these directly from Bareknuckle who wound them specifically for my HSS setup, which I thought had a very "custom" feel to it, with no additional charges. They even wax dipped and put a bottom zinc plate on them which really does make them a "custom" strat pickup. A little bit about these pickups:

They're alnico 5 (alnico stands for Al=aluminum, NI=nickel, Co=Cobalt) and the 5, being the strength of the magnetic force of the rods in the pickup. There are Alnico 2 (being the least magnetic) to Alnico 5 (the strongest most magnetic). If you want to get more info on Alnico the Lindy Fralin website has a decent amount of information.

The reason I know about Alnico magnets, amazingly, isn't because of music or guitars, but dairy farming. A short story:

I grew up on a dairy farm - and cows aren't the most attentive eaters. Cows could and do eat all sorts of things they shouldn't. For example, we had to keep the tractors away from cattle because for some strange reason, cows love the taste of grease - the petroleum kind used to lubricate farm equipment. They love the stuff, so if you left a tractor or piece of equipment where the cows can lick off the grease, they get sick and could get bloat, in which case, a vet needs to punch a hole into the side of the cow to let out gas trapped in one of it's four stomach areas, or it can die.

Back to magnets - cows eat lots of grass, hay, feed, silage, etc. Sometimes nails or metal pieces will be unwittingly near their food and the cow will swallow metal. That is also, as you can guess, not a good thing. So, farmers found out that if a cow was to have a magnet at the bottom of their first stomach area - it would catch and hold the metal objects, saving the cow from a possibly nasty demise. Pure bred cattle also are quite expensive especially when used for breeding. Pedigrees and birth documentation of a highly judged cow or bull can be in the hundreds of thousands for just one animal. So safeguarding them by putting a bolus magnet into them, saves not only the cow but lots of money.

Didn't think I could or would pivot to dairy farming from guitar pickups did you?

Back to the Bareknuckle pickups: Both neck & middle pickups have a very classic 5.7 kΩ DC resistance, making the output on the moderate output side for a classic stat yet, can drive an amp for both a blues, funk and rock sound.

For the humbucker I again went away from the classic Frailin, Seymore Duncan or Fender/Gibson, and went with a Railhammer Hypervintage pickup. Railhammers have an interesting composition in that, the 3 bass string use a rail bar magnet, and the 3 treble strings use the traditional pole pieces in the same pickup. This unique voicing allows a tighter bass tone and a very airy treble in one pickup. These pickups I've played in a few different guitars, and one I own a Reverend Sensei. Needless to say I'm a big fan. The Hypervintage version has a very familiar PAF Gibson tone, yet can really drive distortion with a creamy tone. The Hypervintage pickup is 8.5 kΩ at the bridge position and also uses Alnico 5 magnets in a medium power humbucker. This will be the pickup used for most distorted and lead tones. A bit hotter than a standard PAF, it will really push the distortion.

The neck frets were all removed and replaced. The frets at some point were replaced as the fret wire on it when I got the guitar was closer to a Dunlop 6110 - very wide. I decided to go back to a fret closer to what would have been on the guitar when it was new a Dunlop 6150 nickel - a little taller and less wide - more like the "medium jumbo" Fender says they put on their guitars.

I temporarily hooked up the pickups to the Obsidian wire 5 way switch - I'll need to tie these down before final installation with either zip ties or shrink tubing. The great thing about the Obsidian wire is no soldering.

Here's a few more pictures of the neck and electronics / pickguard. Next up will the result of final sanding and hopefully the guitar fully put together.